View All
Karen Stoiber, Kellner Professor in Educational Psychology

Karen Stoiber, PhD

  • Kellner Professor, Educational Psychology
  • Program Director, School Psychology PhD
  • Training Director, School Psychology EdS/PhD

Karen Stoiber teaches courses in consultation and collaboration practices; advanced therapeutic and classroom interventions; and internship and practicum for school psychologists. She directs a model demonstration grant called Innovative Model of Problem-solving Assessment and collaborative Teaming (IMPACT Project) and co-directs two federal grants on functional assessment, collaborative teaming, and evidence-based practices.

Stoiber's research interests include early literacy, evidence-based practices, functional assessment, school reform, risk and resilience, and developing social competence development in children with challenging behavior. She has directed several federally-funded research and personnel preparation grants on interdisciplinary practices, children with challenging behavior, collaborative teaming, and outcomes-based practices.

Stoiber collaborates with high schools in facilitating smaller learning communities (SLC) to address needs of diverse learners with the aim of promoting adolescent students' connectedness to school and optimal achievement. She also conducts research on models of response-to-intervention (RTI) and is the author of two problem-solving assessment and intervention packages, Functional Assessment and Intervention System and Outcomes: Planning, Monitoring, Evaluating (published by Harcourt/The Psychological Corporation), and the Social Competence Performance Checklist, which is a screening measure designed to target and monitor children with challenging behavior.

She is associate editor of School Psychology Review and served as the evidence-based interventions section editor for School Psychology Quarterly. She also co-directs the American Psychological Association Division of School Psychology Task Force on Women and Task Force on Evidence-based Practices. She earned an MS at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a PhD in educational psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Current Research/Projects

Dr. Stoiber currently directs an Early Reading First project, Exemplary Model of Early Reading Growth and Excellence (Project EMERGE) and a U.S. Department of Education Research and Innovation Project, Promoting Early Attainment of Early Reading and Language Skills (PEARLS). Both projects are directed with Dr. Maribeth Gettinger from UW-Madison.

Projects EMERGE and PEARLS involve a university partnership with the Social Development Commission Head Start and Head Start Partnership Programs in Milwaukee County. Project EMERGE focuses on transforming Head Start Classrooms into Programs of Excellence through high quality professional development, literacy mentoring, teacher implementation of evidence-based literacy practices, and ongoing progress monitoring of children's literacy skill development. Project PEARLS promotes the use research-based early literacy strategies to address the needs of impoverished youth and prevent their entry into special education. Her research team consists of six graduate students who are funded as research assistants and ten graduate students who work as literacy tutors and testers on these projects. Stoiber supervises a second research team on the issues of student connectedness and school safety.

Professional Service

  • Associate Editor, the Communique
  • Editorial Boards: Journal of Applied School Psychology and Topics in Early Childhood and Special Education
  • Vice President of the APA Division 16 - Social and Ethical Responsibility and Ethnic Minority Affairs
  • Associate Editor of School Psychology Review (2000-2003)
  • Evidence Based Interventions Section Editor of School Psychology Quarterly (1999-2002)
  • Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of School Psychology (1996-1998)
  • Associate Editor of Handbook of School Psychology (2003-2005). Chair and Co-Chair of the APA Div 16 Committee on Women (1998-2006)

Honors

  • Outstanding Article (2007) awarded by the Society for the Study of School Psychology for an article on Functional Assessment and Evidence-based Interventions in Journal of School Psychology.
  • Outstanding Article (2003) awarded by the Division 16 fellows for an article on Evidence-based Interventions in School Psychology published in School Psychology Quarterly.
  • Outstanding Article (2001) awarded by the Division 16 School Psychology Division of APA for two-part article on Empirically-Supported Interventions in School Psychology published in School Psychology Quarterly.
  • Selected as a Member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)